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A family of chrome pickers take a break from work in Bulqiza, Albania. Children in the country work the side of the mountains, outside mining areas, looking for scraps to sell through an intricate black market. (photo by Thane Burnett, special to QMI Agency)

Invisibly, they stretch from Albania to everything from cellular phones to perhaps even your sparkling kitchen sink.

This is a confounding story of chrome, before its polished gleam catches our eyes — and how the hands of children are pulling it from muck and mountains.

But first, a wider context — June 12 is the International Day to End Child Labour.

Lots of kids work jobs for themselves and their families. That's not a bad thing, if it's safe and they can go to school.

But according to estimates by World Vision Canada, as part of their nochildforsale.ca campaign, 85 million children around the world toil in dangerous, dirty and degrading trades.

As the globe becomes a more intimate marketplace, some consumers are concerned their products may be assembled with the blood and sweat of the helpless.

After the 2013 Bangladesh clothing factory collapse that claimed more than 1,100 workers, shoppers, humanitarian groups and Canadian designers pushed for compensation, stricter monitoring and openness.

Around the world, this has impacted everything from the trade in conflict diamonds to T-shirts to the emergence of mobile apps allowing buyers to check the labour transparency of clothing brands.

But there are many everyday products finding clever ways to evade global concern.

An Albanian child holds a handful of rock that will be crushed and become chrome for stainless steel. (Thane Burnett, special to QMI Agency))

The foreign chromite pipeline — giving us things like stainless steel and aluminum alloys — has managed to take advantage of child labour, while shouldering little guilt.

On the invitation of World Vision Canada, which funded this project, we have traced one route of the world's shiniest of things to a tarnished start here, in an Albanian mining town.

Cradled in a green valley in eastern Albania, Bulqiza exists on hollow ground. Mines burrow 2,500 metres below the mountain and stretch under the footings of the community.

Above ground, the guts of the mountain — rock ripped out from mining — are piled.

The sound of families striking rocks echo down the valley.

Keli is a 13-year-old chromite scavenger, whose mother was crushed by a tractor as she collected ore.

His father is gone so siblings raise him.

The youngster works days on the rubble piles, then toils even when his eyes are closed.

"I dream of looking down and finding the best (chromite)," he explains.

One of his older brothers, 21-year-old Selimi, has nightmares instead -- of dying like their mother.

He doesn't expect Canadians to care, figuring: "They're rich. They don't have to know where (chrome) comes from."

The path from this mountain to the point it becomes stainless steel is so twisted, even experts here have trouble figuring out where the rocks end up.

It starts with children digging with bare hands.

Many have been injured, and complain of stomach and back problems — a combination of work and water tainted by mine runoff.

A decade ago, stricter government regulations stopped companies from officially hiring children as minors.

But it's led to a black-market supply chain of kids scrambling over treacherous ore dregs outside.

From their buckets, they sell their finds to "chrome bosses" -- shady individuals who sell to companies on the Adriatic coast.

Prospering in the most corrupt country in eastern Europe, everyone knows the chrome bosses by upgrades to their homes and concrete walls topped with broken glass.

Whether the exporters they sell to ask where the piles come from isn't known — and the chrome bosses won't talk.

Certainly, some of America's biggest steel producers have benefited from the Bulqiza mines.

Two Albanian children, 7 and 10, collect cans in Durres, Albania. Child labour is an ongoing issue in the eastern European country. (Thane Burnett, special to QMI Agency)

There are a few Canadian mining companies involved in Albania, including a Vancouver-based firm with a history here in Bulqiza.

However, Jorge Martinez, spokesman for Vancouver-based Columbus Copper Corporation, says it is now divesting completely from the Albanian mines.

Martinez didn't address concerns of child labour in the country but pointed out in an e-mail: "Albania is just a very difficult country to operate in."

The Albanian government is reluctant to speak about its child miners.

Campaigning to bring in child-protection reforms, the new government is seen as progressive. Courting a place in the European Union, one senior department head points to work it's done in charging more than 200 officials with corruption and abuse of power.

But it has no concrete strategy to remove children from the chrome pipeline.

And the young hardly work in secret.

The children scamper with bruised and cut legs up and down the steep grades around Bulqiza, hoping for rain, because it exposes the best stones.

Deaths inside Albanian mines are standard-practice -- by one estimate, as many as two a month. There are no records of how many children are hurt digging outside, earning around eight cents a kilo.

That becomes enough to buy flour.

Margarita, a 27-year-old widow, lost her husband in a mine collapse last year.

He worked at an unlicensed operation so Margarita and her two children haven't received — short of $60 a month in orphans pension — any help.

More than three months ago, she told her children — 10-year-old son Mariglen and seven-year-old daughter Brikela — they would no longer search for chrome.

The rock has taken more than it's given them.

But her son didn't listen. For days, he snuck away and worked the slopes.

Margarita, an Albanian widow whose husband died in the chrome mines, sits next to a dress her son, Mariglen, bought her. With daughter Brikela. (Thane Burnett, special to QMI Agency)

And on the Albanian version of Mother's Day in early March, he bought Margarita flowers — paid for with money he earned from chrome.

She refused them. She was still in mourning for their father, and it wouldn't be proper to permit colour into their home.

So the boy went off, and came back later with another gift — a black dress.

She was grateful, but upset, fretting the future unless she has the money for her children to continue school.

Her son sees nothing wrong with digging for chrome.

He understands only what it buys.

The stones that bought a black dress for a widow, who lost a husband in the pursuit of the same rock, have now likely been forged and polished into another shiny product for this world.

It's not a bad thing we enjoy their shine.

It's just important we all know small hands may have first pulled it, dirty and painfully, from the vein.

Tools and supplies used by child chrome miners in Albania (Thane Burnett, special to QMI Agency)

Pressure starts from Canada

VIENNA, Austria — How can Canadian consumers have an impact on getting even a single child off the side of an Albanian mountain — far outside the confines of mines?

Wendy Therrien, World Vision Canada's director of policy, says there are moves for a Canadian-Albanian trade agreement, and there's a chance to capitalize on the new Albanian government's quest to be part of the European Union.

"I think the key for Canadians is to start asking questions to make the supply chain more transparent," Therrien says. "Canadian companies have online comment sections — ask them what safeguards they have in place."

Martin Neureiter is CEO with Vienna-based CSR Company International, which advises major companies on corporate social responsibility, wants to see a campaign that names Albanian chrome bosses who deal directly with children.

Neureiter suggests telling international companies: "These guys — x, y and z — if you are a buyer from these sources, are you asking questions about where it's coming from?"

Albanian sweatshops another concern

SHKODRA, Albania — Mines are not the only haven for those who take advantage of child labour.

Across Albania, illegal sweatshops employ young girls and boys.

In one case, two sisters, 14 and 15 years old, work every long day in essentially someone's shed. They make Italian underwear and running vests they've been told head to North America.

Combined, they earn $150 each month — though spend $60 for transportation.

Even in established factories, inspectors are no threat to production.